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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26577859">I Shelter You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/firecat/pseuds/firecat'>firecat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Lucifer (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Comfort, Gen, Monsters, Nightmares, Protectiveness, Trust</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 11:48:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>804</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26577859</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/firecat/pseuds/firecat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Trixie helps protect Maze from nightmare monsters.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Trixie Espinoza &amp; Mazikeen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>64</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Hold Me: A Comfort Prompfest</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Shelter You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/musesfool/gifts">victoria_p (musesfool)</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Set sometime around season 2, episode 7.</p><p>Warning is for brief depictions of knives, blood, and monsters.</p><p>Fill for Hold Me: a comfort promptfest (https://sholio.dreamwidth.org/1347813.html)<br/>Prompt: "Lucifer, Maze &amp; Trixie, comfort after nightmares."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Brandishing the knife, Maze screams defiance like the arch-demon she is. </p><p>She’s on one knee in a pool of blood. Her leather armor is slashed to pieces. She’s lost her swords. One was snatched and flung away by the monsters, the other was snapped in two as easily as if it were a toothpick. She only has her karambit left.</p><p>The remaining monster gives a hideous, ear-splitting roar — all the more horrible because Maze knows it is laughter. A scaly paw as big as she is closes around her body. Maze squeezes her eyes shut, as if that will make the monster go away. She stabs and slashes at the paw with the knife, to no avail. The monster ignores the pricks of the tiny blade, picks her up, and begins shaking her. Shaking. Shaking. She struggles, but she feels like she is being shaken apart. </p><p>“Wake up, Maze. Wake up!” </p><p>Her eyes fly open. She grabs for the throat of the person shaking her.</p><p>“Maze, ouch, you’re hurting me!” </p><p>She recognizes the voice. She lets go of the throat, and stares up at Chloe’s offspring, leaning over her in the semi-dark. Trixie is shaking her shoulder.</p><p>“Trixie? What are you doing here?”</p><p>“Are you all right?” the young human says. “You were screaming. I think you were having a bad dream.” </p><p>Trixie gives a dramatic sigh of relief, then goes on: “Sometimes when I have bad dreams, my mom wakes me up and holds me until I’m not scared any more. Do you want me to hold you, Maze?”</p><p>Maze is still half in one place, half in another. She needs grounding.</p><p>“Yeah, that would be nice. You can hold me, kid.” Maze is glad of Chloe’s pajamas-required house rule. </p><p>Trixie climbs into the bed with her and clasps her arms around Maze’s neck. She smells like shampoo and cherry lip gloss. And…</p><p>“Did you just eat chocolate cake, Trixie?” Maze asks.</p><p>“Don’t tell mom, OK?” Trixie pleads in a loud whisper.</p><p>“My lips are sealed.” Maze is proud of her little cake-snatcher. </p><p>Trixie rocks Maze back and forth by the neck. It’s awkward and…Maze searches for the right word…sweet. Maze isn’t used to “sweet.” There was none of it in Hell. She feels tension start to trickle out of her.</p><p>“What was your nightmare about?” asks Trixie.</p><p>“Fighting monsters,” Maze says. “A big one got hold of me in its paw.”</p><p>“I have nightmares about monsters a lot too. Did you fight back?”</p><p>“Always,” Maze tells her. “Never let the monsters win without a fight, kid. Fight to your last breath.” Maze wonders if this is too harsh for Trixie to hear. Humans try so hard to protect their young from the monstrous parts of life. </p><p>But Trixie has never seemed to want or need that kind of protecting, at least as far as Maze’s own monstrousness is concerned. She has always been right there with Maze, taking the scary with the fun. Even when Maze showed her demon face…</p><p>Trixie looks at Maze, her head tilted in contemplation. It’s dark, but Maze’s demon vision lets her see the dinosaurs printed on Trixie’s pajamas. The one standing on its hind legs looks kind of like the monster in her dreams, except its arms are shorter.</p><p>“My mom says if monsters fight you in dreams, you should try to make friends with them,” Trixie tells Maze.</p><p>Maze laughs loudly. Then realizes Chloe is sleeping nearby and puts her hand over her mouth, turning her laughter into snickers. Trixie snickers too.</p><p>“If you see monsters, Trixie, always fight first. If you survive, you can make friends afterward, maybe.”</p><p>“That’s smart, Maze,” Trixie assures her. “It’s better not to trust people too soon. It’s better to trust them little by little, Mom says.”</p><p>“Same goes for monsters,” says Maze. She feels a little sad that this human who’s been alive fewer than ten years has already needed to learn to withhold trust. But given what Chloe’s been through in her life, Maze isn’t too surprised. </p><p>“Mom says monsters aren’t real, though, Maze. They’re only in bad dreams.”</p><p>Maze shudders. She doesn’t want to go there, but she blurts out, “They’re real, kid.”</p><p>“Maybe where you come from. But not here.”</p><p>“Yeah, here too. But it’s OK, Trixie, I won’t let any of them get you.”</p><p>“I won’t let them get you either!” Trixie declares, hugging Maze tighter. “We’ll fight them together.” </p><p>They lapse into silence. Eventually Maze hears Trixie’s breathing go deep and regular. She’s fallen asleep.</p><p>“I feel better, Trixie. Thank you for saving me from the monsters,” Maze whispers, not loud enough to wake the kid. She shifts slightly to lay her head back on the pillow, her hand resting lightly against Trixie’s back, and lets a dreamless slumber take her.</p>
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